Monday, May 17, 2004
the opposite of love...
what would you say is the opposite of love? the most simplistic and often most popular answer is hate. but have you found that because both involves strong feelings, that there is often a very fine line between love and hate? so, maybe if the line is so fine, they are not in fact, true opposites...
at one point in the last few years, i looked at the people i least loved and thought that apathy was the opposite of love. there were certain people who i just stopped caring about altogether... either from life situation, or from past hurts. i saw this, but didn't really acknowledge it as anything....
then recently, i revisted these feelings of apathy, realizing that i have, with some frequency, shut people off emotionally. with a string of events, it made me realize that this is something i need to confront. i was afraid that if i didn't deal with it properly, i would do that within the context of a relationship and really mess things up.
so i went to talk to someone about it.
there were quite a few reasons for this, but one was the unanswered question, is being honest with one's emotion a biblical or psychological concept? if merely psychological, then is it something i need to deal with? there was a lot that surrounded the asking of that question, but the answer he gave me was very surprising...
he said the question isn't necessarily whether this is psychological or biblical. it may be an observable truth that i have shut people off emotionally. is this amoral? it may seem so, but if it contradicts biblical principles (such as, am i loving my neighbor as myself?) then perhaps it isn't so neutral. my shutting people off emotionally is acting unlovingly... and because of that, it is something that i ought to examine.
beyond that, though, he said something else that really stirred my thinking. he said that fear was the opposite of love. now that one was new to me. he supported that scripturally with 1 john, where it talks about perfect love casts out all fears. i've never even thought of the two in the same plane. but... after some consideration, i think he's right. cause really, fear is what motivates one to be apathetic, or even hate.
the only bummer is, i wanted to walk away from the meeting with answers. instead, i'm walking away with a different set of questions and thankfully, a renewed sense of hope. lets just hope that it doesn't fade...
what would you say is the opposite of love? the most simplistic and often most popular answer is hate. but have you found that because both involves strong feelings, that there is often a very fine line between love and hate? so, maybe if the line is so fine, they are not in fact, true opposites...
at one point in the last few years, i looked at the people i least loved and thought that apathy was the opposite of love. there were certain people who i just stopped caring about altogether... either from life situation, or from past hurts. i saw this, but didn't really acknowledge it as anything....
then recently, i revisted these feelings of apathy, realizing that i have, with some frequency, shut people off emotionally. with a string of events, it made me realize that this is something i need to confront. i was afraid that if i didn't deal with it properly, i would do that within the context of a relationship and really mess things up.
so i went to talk to someone about it.
there were quite a few reasons for this, but one was the unanswered question, is being honest with one's emotion a biblical or psychological concept? if merely psychological, then is it something i need to deal with? there was a lot that surrounded the asking of that question, but the answer he gave me was very surprising...
he said the question isn't necessarily whether this is psychological or biblical. it may be an observable truth that i have shut people off emotionally. is this amoral? it may seem so, but if it contradicts biblical principles (such as, am i loving my neighbor as myself?) then perhaps it isn't so neutral. my shutting people off emotionally is acting unlovingly... and because of that, it is something that i ought to examine.
beyond that, though, he said something else that really stirred my thinking. he said that fear was the opposite of love. now that one was new to me. he supported that scripturally with 1 john, where it talks about perfect love casts out all fears. i've never even thought of the two in the same plane. but... after some consideration, i think he's right. cause really, fear is what motivates one to be apathetic, or even hate.
the only bummer is, i wanted to walk away from the meeting with answers. instead, i'm walking away with a different set of questions and thankfully, a renewed sense of hope. lets just hope that it doesn't fade...
Comments:
I think more questions are good, especially in this area where answers are often the worst sort of thing to have. I mean, answers can typically mean platitudes. Questions mean more searching and looking within scripture and ourselves.
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